


town of glass and eyes

by crownlessliestheking



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Catharsis, Character Study, Epistolary, Flashbacks, Gen, Gore, Healing, Isolation, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Self-Acceptance, Terrible Coping Mechanisms, Travel, Wanderlust, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, barf, bildungsroman, travelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23478100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes wakes up earlier than he expected to, more himself than he expected to, but there's still questions that need to be answered, and a voice that lurks in his head.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this literally years ago, right after Civil War came out. Wrote like 15k words and forgot about it completely. But here we are now, me starting to post some of it. Obviously, this is not canon-compliant. It is nowhere near canon compliant. Canon was in the car with me, I robbed it of like 4 things, and kicked it to the curb and drove off. 
> 
> The timeline of this is going to be between Civil War and Infinity War, but if you're here for the buildup into IW, this isn't really it. This is way more about Bucky healing and slowly learning to forgive himself, and rediscovering his agency, admittedly through some not stellar coping mechanisms. It's also about his relationships with others- and no, this isn't going to be a shippy story, I don't think. 
> 
> I'll list trigger warnings for each chapter (you know, if they need it), and tag them as they come in the fic, since this is very much a work in progress. Uh, hope you like my take on Bucky.

_An act of kindness_ _  
Is what you show to me  
It caught me by surprise in this town of glass and ice  
Kindness, so many people pass me by  
But you warm me to my core and you left me wanting more_

-Bastille, An Act of Kindness

* * *

**i.**

The heat of the air sears his lungs when he breathes in, prickles at his skin in spikes of agony; his mouth opens wide like a fish, gaping. He feels wet, slimy, like a newborn slithered out of the womb for the first time.

In many ways, he is. 

The man kneels on the floor of a lab in a country he knows is called Wakanda ( _Monarchy, isolationist, vibranium, current king: T’Challa, dangerous but not a target, do not engage unless required_ -

His thought processes stall. There is no mission, they have not woken him for this. They have not strapped him into the chair, or given him files or a handler.

These are scientists.

There is a woman in the background who bleeds danger in her posture. He looks away from her immediately, tries to focus on the noises that sound as if they’re filtering in through water. The scientists are speaking. This is an upgrade, then. But HYDRA is not in Wakanda. Why is he here, _why is he here_ -

“Buck.” Another voice. The man on the bridge, he remembers instantly, in a bolt of clarity ( _Captain America, Steve Rogers, The Man On The Bridge, Stevie, dangerous no I know him I grew up with him_ , the image of the man using a shield like an extension of his own body, steadfast and solid as a rock, juxtaposed against a skinny boy with knobby knees and too-big knuckles and lungs that never worked quite right, always ready to pick a fight, _Engage if necessary but difficulties are anticipated_ ).

He looks at the Captain- no, Steve. He looks at Steve through strands of hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes wide. The room is cool, but not cold. There’s still a chill inside him. He waits for the memories to filter in- he’d asked them to do this, hadn’t he? Another man, separated from him by a screen, talking about the fall of an empire. Opening a red notebook and reading the words written down there, each of them like a gunshot to the chest of the person he was becoming, until that one died and the Soldier tore itself free from his corpse.

“Steve,” he says, and his throat is rubbed raw and his voice rough, but the name feels right in his mouth. Something that has always belonged there. Newspaper in his shoes and a scrawny kid always picking a fight, and then a soldier who defied orders to save him when it mattered. I’m with you to the end of the line. And he was- is. He has to ignore the voice that says it hadn’t been like that. Steve had come back when it mattered, in the end.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me, Buck,” Stevie says, and there’s a glint of silver in his eyes, the flash of unshed tears he ducks his head to hide. The gesture is endearing, if unfamiliar.

“Why am I awake?” is the next thing he asks- because if he’s still in Wakanda, if he’s still here, how long has it been? He was meant to be frozen until he was safe, until they found a way to tear the Soldier free from his head, erase the triggers and start him over as the man he used to be. James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes. Neither of them sound right in his head, and the Soldier is still there, simmering beneath the surface. “What year is it?”

“Same as before, 2016,” Steve answers, and there’s the characteristic stubborn set of his jaw that belies the slight guilt he knows will be written all over Steve’s face if the man were to look up.

He tamps down on the rising surge of panic. They haven’t fixed the triggers, yet. They’re not anywhere near to finding a solution, but here he is, unfrozen and unleashed and there’s no mission ( _yet_ ) so what can they want him for?

“The triggers,” is all he says in response to that, and now Steve’s looking at him properly. The guilt is there, but he doesn’t think it’s entirely for him. Not with the way Steve turns his head slightly, looks at the box sitting unobtrusively on the table a few feet away.

“Nobody here’s gonna use those,” Steve replies, extending a hand. There’s only the slightest moment of deliberation, a hesitation from the Soldier ( _you could easily drag him down, shove him into the chamber and run- the rest will be easier to incapacitate without him there_ )

“But if they’re not fixed, then why am I awake?” he presses, forces some insistence into his voice. He takes Steve’s hand, clasps it tight and uses it to haul himself up. He has to ignore the brief tension in his legs and shoulders, ready to haul ~~the enemy~~ Steve past him and run. The woman near the door is still watching him, her face like stone. Her hands are swallowed by bulky gauntlets, and he doesn’t need to look at them for more than a second to see the implicit threat. It sets the Soldier on edge.

( _It would not be that difficult to evade her, but I don’t know what she can do, I want to find out, eliminate all variables before the final-_ )

He slams what he’s come to think of as a door in his head.

“The arm,” Steve says, with a gesture towards it. The perpetual ache in his shoulder sparks in a sharp jolt of pain- but this is another thing he has gotten used to.

“What about it?” he asks, suspicious as he lifts the metal hand, brushing away the protest that the remaining organics in the stump of his shoulder screech. It’s beaded with condensation, the spider-webbing of frost swirling on the pads of the fingers gone. He curls the fingers into a fist, and he can feel the tension in the room spike before he uncurls them. The fingers are sticking- the arm needs maintenance.

“You’re- getting a new one.” He glances up, reads the reluctance in the thin line of Steve’s mouth, the tension in his shoulders. The way he keeps looking back to that box on the table.

“I didn’t think T’Challa would be so generous,” is what he decides on saying, and the woman’s mouth curls in what could be a sneer. Evidently, not a gift from the king. Wakanda, he knows, would be fully capable of producing an arm. And fully willing to melt this one down and reclaim the vibranium. The Soldier is not pleased with the idea of losing this, the last remaining link they have to HYDRA ( _I do not understand why you refuse to go back, they need us, they would take us back_ ). But the arm has not been upgraded since before that last, disastrous mission and SHIELD’s fall.

“It isn’t from him,” Steve manages to get out. His voice is even, his lips turned down in displeasure. “It’s from- Stark.”

“Stark,” he echoes blankly, and turns to stare at the box. “But wasn’t he-?”

There is a car on a dark road, the taillights gleaming like eyes in front of him. Easy to follow. There is the sound of metal crunching and the sharp-clear sound of glass shattering. There is a man in the car, his face is familiar, something inside him is screaming. The man recognizes him, but-

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes like he can crowd the memory out of his head. Another, more recent, takes its place. A man in a suit, short and sharp-eyed behind mirrored shades, armor flowing along his forearm when a gun is pointed, fired-

The same man, but now clad in a suit red-gold and ostentatious, burning bright. A bunker in Siberia, a video. A memory, a murder.

The back of his throat burns with bile as he remembers leaving him there. They’d had to leave, of course. Go somewhere safe- and besides, T’Challa had been there.

“He was.”

“I don’t understand,” he says, his brows furrowing as he stares at the box. “Why would he send me that? Is it going to- kill me or something?”

The look on Steve’s face says that he wouldn’t put it past Stark, but he shakes his head. “No. It’s been scanned for just about everything, and the note that came with it said that it wasn’t.”

There’s something else beneath the surface, but he knows it’s a fresh wound, still seeping blood and vitriol.

“And you’re trusting the note.” He raises an eyebrow, the tone and expression familiar and reserved for when Steve was being exceptionally stupid. Even if it feels like he’s stepping into shoes too big to fill, the nostalgia is a comfort he indulges in.

“No. But T’Challa was the one who brought it in, and he was the one who ordered the scans done, and then he was the one who said I should ask you what you thought about it when you woke up, so. Here we are,” Steve sighs, gesturing to the box. “He says it’s safe. And I believe him. And I don’t think that he would, that Tony would, do something like that.”

The ‘he’d rather do it in person’ goes unsaid, hangs heavy in the air.

“What does the note say?”

“Do you want to read it?”

He shakes his head, an abrupt, jerky motion. “No. Just, tell me what it says. From what I hear, Stark talks a whole lot, and it’s not like I’m in any shape to be skimming pages of angry gibberish.” The joke does its job, and brings a small, if tired, smile to Steve’s lips. Good.

“Yeah, that’s not too far from the mark. But this one was short enough, for him. Basically it said that he’d built the arm, and that it should work just fine. He wants the old one in return, says it’s so he can take a look at the design in case any other HYDRA goons pop up with something similar.”

“But what does he _want_ , other than that? There has to be something else, right? It’s not like either of us can pay him for it.”

“He didn’t say.”

“The arm’s going to strangle me in my sleep,” he says, entirely deadpan. Steve’s expression freezes. “It was a joke, Stevie, I make those sometimes.”

“Right,” Steve huffs out a quiet laugh, but his shoulders are still tense. “Not a very good one, though. You left your sense of humor in the ice.”

“Yeah? I’d say the same for you, but it ain’t like you ever had one.” He feels his mouth curl up into a familiar smirk, one that he wears more comfortably than any other expression. Teasing, he thinks. Friendly teasing.

“Really? All the girls used to say I was real funny,” Steve says, and the banter feels like walking in his own footprints in the snow, something that fits perfectly but is so, so fragile.

“Not after you bulked up with the magic serum, I can tell you that.”

“ _Buck!_ ”

“I’m just sayin’, the dames were all over you and you didn’t even know what to do with that.”

“Look, let’s just talk about the arm again, please.”

“I can see that shit hasn’t changed, you’re all red now.”

“The arm, Bucky, please-,”

“Alright, alright,” he relents, good-naturedly, at Steve’s groan of exasperation. “I want it.”

“You- what?” Steve seems stunned, his eyes widened. The expression on his face is almost comical, and he- _Bucky,_ no, Buck, no- has to stifle another smirk.

“I want the arm, Stevie,” he repeats, gesturing towards the box with his metal one, even if it sends a burning wave of pain where the arm is fused to his shoulder. “It can’t be any worse than this one, and- well. I’m sure it’ll have a hell of a lot more in terms of a failsafe, if something goes wrong.”

The Soldier stirs in the back of his head, a rumble of discontent at the thought of that failsafe. ( _Not needed, we are in control and do not need that kind of hindrance. That kind of leash. Why would you take this one and not the one we are still collared to?_ ) He doesn’t have an answer to that. Nothing beyond the simple fact that anything is better than HYDRA.

“And you’ll give this one to him, just like that?” Steve sounds stung, hurt.

“Well, yeah. I don’t want it anymore, and if anyone’s gonna be seeing that it’s destroyed like it should be, it’ll be him.” He remembers metal fingers curling around the throat of a sobbing woman, just above a pearl necklace resting just above her collarbone. He remembers her begging trailing off, her eyes bugging out. The snap of her neck and the tears streaming down her face. His mouth tastes like ash. Tony Stark will destroy the arm, he’s sure.

“And for all I know, there could be others with this kinda thing attached. I didn’t know about the other Soldiers, after all,” he continues, trying his best to sound reasonable. Grasping for the straws of sweet-talking, charming Bucky Barnes, who had more than his fair share of charisma. Judging from the expression on Steve’s face, he’s failing miserably at it.

“Right.”

“What’s really bugging you about the arm? You worried that he’s gonna have a UN task force descending on Wakanda in the next five minutes or something?”

“No. He already knows where we are, and I don’t know _how_. If he wanted to send people after us, he would have by now. Maybe T’Challa talked him out of it,” Steve shrugs, lifts a hand to run it through his hair. “It’s just- if this is his way of trying to apologise, there’s better ways to do it. Like actually _saying_ sorry.”

“Doesn’t seem like he’s the kinda guy to be so direct about it,” he says instead, a casual suggestion. He doesn’t believe that Stark’s sorry- at least not for his reaction after seeing the video. He can’t find it in himself to blame the man. No matter how badly Steve wants to insist otherwise, it’s still him, isn’t it? The Soldier hums his approval.

“He’s not. But he has other ways to contact me. And it doesn’t have to be so much of a threat, either. The entire- I know where you’re hiding and I could come get you any time but I’m not going to because I want you staying awake at night wondering when I’ll come swooping in and ruining everything.”

“Maybe you wanna take a breath,” he advises, clasping Steve’s shoulder. “He’s a busy guy, and I think he knows he can’t exactly storm into Wakanda and uh, ‘swoop in and ruin everything’.”

“I know. That- it wasn’t fair. I don’t know _why_ he’d send this, though, when they’re still dragging our names through the mud everywhere else. It’s a bullshit apology and he knows it.”

He just shrugs, helplessly. “Well, I ain’t about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. If T’Challa says it’s safe, then it’s safe.” He doesn’t say that if the king wanted him dead, it would have been beyond easy to have an accident happen with the Wakandan cryo-chamber. There’s a twist of suspicion from the Soldier, and something that runs more along the lines of _I told you so_ , than anything else- but there’s nothing to be smug over. He’s still breathing, and the Wakandan cryo-chamber was far kinder to him than HYDRA’s, even if he can still feel the phantom ice coating his teeth, even if the hairs on his arm are still on end, as if expecting a shock.

He can tell that Steve wants to argue, and he just shakes his head and walks over to the box on legs that are still shaky, adamant in their refusal to support his weight. It doesn’t matter. He’s breathing heavily by the time he gets to the table, and he can practically feel the disapproval, the urge to help, radiating from Steve, who shadows his every footstep instead, almost waiting for him to fall. _It is almost like he has forgotten that I have the serum, too._

He leans heavily against the table, stares down the box. It’s plain cardboard, with an envelope resting neatly on top. He assumes that’s the letter Steve was speaking of; the envelope is torn open and bulging where the paper has been carelessly stuffed back into it. This, he picks up and sets aside before opening the box.

“Is it vibranium?” he asks the room in general as he begins to remove a frankly unnecessary amount of bright pink foam bobbles. Packing peanuts, he’s heard them called.

“No. Stark’s only source of that is the precious shield of your Captain, and I do not think he would melt that down to make an arm for you.” It’s the woman by the door who speaks, and her voice is low, raspy. _She is dangerous_ , the Soldier tells him. _She does not want us here. Or- perhaps she it is the Captain that she does not want here._

“I don’t know about that,” Steve mutters darkly.

This, he ignores in favour of lifting the new arm from the box, where it can gleam in the bright light of the room. He almost expected it to be that brilliant red and gold, like a dying sun, but instead it’s a smooth, matte finish. Black and silver, sleek lines but maintaining the same segmentation on this one. When he examines the shoulder port, he frowns.

“How is it meant to go in?” he asks, turning his head to address the nearest scientist, who raises an eyebrow at him in return.

“I do not understand. It will be fit like any other prosthetic. You will see that Mister Stark has also provided a pad and socket for it.”

“But where are the- I don’t know what they’re called,” he pauses, attempting to think of a way to describe it. “The connections. To hook up onto my nerves. Screw it into the bone, too.”

The scientist looks faintly green, and even the woman by the door’s eyebrows draw together. He doesn’t need to look at Steve to know that there’s a horrified expression on his face. He doesn’t understand, though; this arm certainly does look nice, but there isn’t any way to attach it to his body.

“You will find that we are fully capable of attaching the arm without such primitive uses. Mister Stark has provided a loose set of instructions, should they be needed. And a recommendation for use of another of his machines- the Cradle, they call it.”

“That’s what Ultron used,” Steve says hotly. Reproachingly. “And he thinks we’re just going to hook Bucky up to that?”

“It does not work quite like that, and even I must admit that it is a unique thing, but we will not be needing it. Rest assured, Captain, your friend,” here, a flash of white teeth that’s almost a snarl, “will have the care of Wakanda’s best surgeons. If he chooses that arm, anyway.” There’s a moment of something that’s almost like petulance, where she seems to be just her age. “I could make a better one, if you wanted. Way better.”

Steve falls into a stony silence, his lips pursed together.

“Thank you- ma’am,” he fumbles over the title, it feels wrong, clumsy on his lips. It certainly doesn’t suit her- it’s too old, too clumsy. “But I’ll take this one.”

“You may address me as Princess Shuri, or Your Highness,” she answers, tapping a finger on one of those gauntlets. He eyes them, wary. “It is the English equivalent of my title. See that you don’t forget it, colonizer, even if you’ve forgotten good taste.”

One of the guards presses her lips tight together, like she’s trying to stifle a smile. Not serious, then.

“I won’t,” he replies, hesitating before giving a short nod. Almost a bow. This seems to satisfy her, and that piercing gaze sweeps over him. Bucky is left with the distinct impression that she’s messing with him somehow.

“She didn’t need to do that,” Steve grumbles, picking up one of the peanuts and pressing it down tight, flattening it out. It crunches weakly.

“I don’t think that’s a dame I could charm into informality, Stevie, and- they’ve done a lot for me. I’d rather be on the polite side, somethin’ a punk like you wouldn’t know,” he teases, letting that Brooklyn drawl slip loose again. It doesn’t feel any more natural than it did the first time, but it seems to set Steve at ease, so he tamps down on the prickle of discomfort.

“I can be polite and you know it. He’s put fake skin in there, by the way,” Steve adds, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “Nearly gave me a heart attack when I first saw it. It’s got sleeve tattoos.”

“Better than carving patterns into the arm itself,” he jokes, but takes the ‘sleeve’ out to take a look at it. The texture feels shockingly like real skin, even if it’s cold and slightly rubbery. There are, in fact, sleeve tattoos there, ink imprinted on it and meant to mimic the segmentation this arm, if not the color. Bucky thinks he should be grateful that it doesn’t say ‘MURDERER’ in bright red along the length of it. He deserves it.

“It could be worse,” is what he settles on saying. _Why is he doing this?_ , goes unsaid in the air between them, hanging above their heads like a guillotine.

“Could be bright red and gold,” Steve agrees. _I don’t know_ , comes the answer, and he tries not to let it settle under his skin.

Instead, he turns to the scientists, puts the skin down. And asks when’s the soonest they can attach it to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect any kind of real update schedule on this one, guys. I like it, and the beginning is relatively solid, but the structure towards the end is a flaming hot mess I haven't touched in like six months, god help me, and I have 2 fics for a Big Bang to finish plus a BUNCH of other stuff. RIP. 
> 
> (That being said, I am kind of dedicated to getting this thing going or at least putting out here what I've written so far, so here we are with Chapter 2. More filler, more cast introductions, as I get a feel for everyone Post-CW because that is when I started this :) :) :). )

Learning to use the arm isn’t as fast a process as he might like. It’s certainly a lack of speed that the Soldier chafes at, even as he marvels at the arm itself ( _it’s light, easy to move, it will not require anywhere near as much maintenance, do you think he’s placed a tracker in it-? No matter. That is something that can be disabled, if it hasn’t been already_ ).

He is simply in awe at the lack of pain.

Steve had insisted on being in the room with him, for the attachment process. He would have protested, if not for the fact that they both knew the drugs were unlikely to work like they should on him. Wakandan medicine has yet to come up with something to permanently keep a super soldier down, it appears. Not that he would have taken it, if it had been offered. It’s more than that, though.

The least he could do for the arm is suffer for it.

And he had. He’d come to hazily in the middle of it, dosage already pumped up high enough to kill a normal man twice over. He’d looked at Steve’s face and his expression twisted a knife into his gut, a deeper hurt than the pain crackling along his joints as HYDRA’s fist lost its defining characteristic, as he fought back the instinct of ( _nonoNO THAT IS NECESSARY I NEED IT TO BE FUNCTIONAL I NEED IT ITHURTSHURTSHURTS_ ) and the white-hot static that coated his brain and blurred the periphery of his vision. There was blood in his mouth, coppery and bitter, but he didn’t scream. Steve had told him that, later, with a soft voice and distant eyes as he looked everywhere but at the new arm.

He didn’t bother to explain his reasoning. Steve wouldn’t understand, he knows, and that’s another thorn digging its way under his skin.

Instead, he gets assigned a regimen of exercises meant to calibrate the arm, give him an idea of what it can do. Nothing outside of basic functions, though Steve had informed him later that Stark’s note and recommendation had included crushing a boulder with his bare hands, or even getting into a fistfight with the Hulk. He didn’t know how to parse the expression on his face. Steve’s mouth had quirked up into a half-smile, one that doesn’t match up with any of the ones he has in his admittedly faint memories. It was bitter, fond.

He’s happy he never had to fight the Hulk, anyway. He remembers trying to learn more about the Avengers, and stumbling across a grainy video of something huge, and green. The serum made monsters of them all, he thinks sometimes, but then has to correct himself. Steve, after all, was chosen because he was _good_. Perhaps he and Banner ended up this way because they weren’t.

Which is not at all fair to Banner, he figures. At least the Soldier can be reasoned with, to an extent. At least his other half has control.

He curls his fingers into a fist, uncurls them. Spreads them wide, goes through a repertoire of international obscene gestures. This last one is his addition. He suspects Stark would approve. The response time is lagging, slightly. This is a small price to pay for sensation beyond hot and cold, to be able to feel rough and soft and the soothing flow of running water. Cold condensation on the side of a glass (never mind that he’d shattered the first three he’d touched). The smooth warmth of a worn stone sitting in the sun.

He thinks that perhaps the pain of the surgery itself too low a price, in exchange for this. The physical therapy is not something he has much experience with- not how it is, here. He remembers cold and being told to fire a gun into a target, he remembers brutal sparring matches against ill-equipped handlers. He remembers pressing down on the part of him that still felt the pain until it was nothing more than a whisper in a sea of screaming silence.

It’s different, here, in a way he doesn’t understand. It’s stopping, if it gets to be too much. It’s small exercises like this, like writing and penmanship and bouncing a ball off a wall to build fine motor control. It’s something Steve calls yoga, that Natalia sometimes does with him, even if his skin prickles with awareness the entire time.

( _The Widow, we know her, we taught her. I wonder if she dares to let us feel those bites of hers, if she thinks that she can best us. Let her try_ ).

He ignores the Soldier’s thoughts then, but he knows the tension that carves his body still as a statue, when she attempts to speak. He knows that there’s no malice behind this, but he is ever so aware of how dangerous she is, even if Steve seems to be wilfully ignorant of it. She is a ready, established part of this team, but she is also a reminder of a past that he wishes he could forget. She’s a different kind of ghost, and he doesn’t pretend to understand her reasons, but he thinks they go something like this: there is a place called the Red Room, where girls become weapons; there is a bullet that should have hit her in the heart, but didn’t.

In her defense, he does snap at her once, when he can feel her eyes raking across him with surgical precision. Pinpointing strengths and weaknesses and always calculating danger. It’s the sort of thing that’s burned into people like them, a habit they can’t shake. But that doesn’t mean he likes being on the receiving end, not when he’s already on edge from having spent an hour sparring with one of the Dora and getting his ass soundly handed to him, when he twists his arm too far and it sends sparks of pain- real pain- shooting through his shoulder.

“If you want to know what the fuck I can do so badly, then just say you’re spoilin’ for a fight, Наталия. I’d be happy to oblige,” he says, his voice cold and dripping with challenge. His mouth is coated with frost as he speaks, and the fingers of his metal arm curl tight in a fist. The Soldier is close to the surface, now, and he knows that she can see it in the way she straightens deliberately. Shifting her weight to prepare to either fight or flee, making sure she’s out of arm’s reach. “

He doesn’t blame her, when she stops coming. In fact, he’s grateful for it. They still see each other, of course, but the care she takes not to be in the same room alone with him, afterwards. He almost feels guilty, when Steve gives him the lecture that he deserves for it.

But she’s not the only member of the team he steers clear of. The girl, Wanda Maximoff, is another. He does not understand how someone could choose HYDRA, and he isn’t sure if he wants to. The others- they seem to trust her, and he can accept that, but he knows what she can do. ( _A witch of mind, turning dreams into nightmares and feeding on fear, manipulating thoughts and telekinesis-)_ , the Soldier’s list goes on. For him, it’s her lack of control and the truth of what her power is rooted in, that he can’t take. He knows that it isn’t fair to her- Steve says she’s just a kid, that she’s been through a lot, but he’s not here to coddle her through that. He does thank her, once, for helping him. It’s enough to see her brief nod.

(He overhears her telling Barton quietly that she doesn’t like being around him either, and his mouth twists up in a wry, bitter smile when he hears the reason.

“His mind, it is like shards of ice. Broken and sharp to the touch, and so cold.”

“Huh. Really? I guess that’d be enough to give anyone a headache.”

“It isn’t his fault, and I know that. But it isn’t a pleasant sensation to be around, either. Any empath or telepath would think the same.”

“Not saying you’re wrong, there. He’s got a lot going on, and you don’t come back from what that guy went through unscathed.”

“I suppose so. I would help, but-,”

“You don’t have to. And he wouldn’t want you messing around in there, anyway. Guy’s had enough of that.”

“You’re right. But if it comes down to it, I could help. I could try.”

“I know. But that wound’s a little too fresh to go jabbing at it with a stick.”)

Lang and Barton are two he actually kind of gets along with. He thinks that he would have liked them, in the past. Lang’s got a perpetually starstruck look, but Lang also believes entirely in what he’s doing- which is more than he can say for himself. It’s something he can respect, anyway. And if it wasn’t, there’s always the suit. A lot of people seem to have special suits, these days. He figures it’s better than getting shot up with a magic serum. A little more predictable. Barton seems to agree, even if it’s only vaguely. He doesn’t get to see much of the archer; he and Natalia are nearly glued to each other’s sides, when he’s not with Wanda. What he does see, he thinks he likes. Barton has a sharp tongue and a sense of humor that borders on the surreal. Not that he minds it particularly; it’s- nice. To have someone that won’t mince their words with him. He tends to be quiet, which appears to be fine for both of them- Lang likes to talk about his kid in a gentle sort of voice, the kind that makes him want to take Steve by the shoulders and shake him for turning a father into an international criminal. He’s not an idiot, he knows that’s what they are. But he also knows that he would have done the same, if Steve had asked. And Barton? He’s here for Maximoff, and neither of them can look at his arm for too long, even if they’re in a room with all the others. Not without their mouths curling down in disdain, as if he’s somehow lesser for accepting the assistance of the man who wronged them so.

He ignores it, of course. It wouldn’t help to argue on that, even if he can feel their eyes digging into his back every time he has the audacity to appear in short sleeves. And he doesn’t owe them any sort of explanation, regardless of how thankful he should be for their assistance. Regardless of how often Steve tells him that they’d understand, if he explained.

But it’s Sam Wilson he finds himself seeking out, most often. The other man never bothers to chase him off, though he does get up and pointedly leave the room the first few times. It’s refreshingly honest, the same as him stubbornly refusing to move his seat in the too-small interior of an ancient car. He’s not sure if the fact that he keeps trying is a testament to his own persistence, or sheer spite.

He suspects that it’s a healthy mixture of both. He can respect that.

(“What have you got against me?” he asks Wilson one day.

“What, like I’m supposed to be real grateful to you for being the cause of me getting my ass dragged away from home and to here? Yeah, man, we’re peachy keen.” Bucky couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not, but he’d decided to believe he was at least a little, given that Wilson was currently watching football on a screen that occupied an entire wall, and crunching down on some Wakandan fritters that Bucky, potentially, had chosen as his new favorite food.

“I didn’t tell you to do this for me,” he points out.

“You didn’t tell Steve either, but then again, you didn’t need to,” Wilson answers. “Now move, tall boy, you’re blocking the game.”

Bucky sits down on the couch next to him, keeping a solid four inches of space between them, even if the sofa itself could fit three other people. Sometimes, it’s just good to get on someone’s nerves. Especially when they’re not walking on eggshells around him.

“On your left,” he says, because he remembers that much from the stories Steve had told him about how those two had met. Wilson’s sour expression tells him that he’s right on the money on this one.

“Fuck you, man. Not everyone’s a super soldier who can run a five minute mile.” He crams two fritters into his mouth, crunching loudly on them. Louder than before, anyway; it’s obnoxious, but in a way that Bucky kind of appreciates.

“Pass the snacks, and I hope your team loses,” Bucky tells him.

“Get your own damn snacks,” Wilson says.

Bucky manages to steal half of them anyway, which is a good consolation because Wilson’s team does win, and he’s insufferable about it for five entire minutes. Bucky’s not that invested; he’s always liked baseball more than football, but the novelty of being able to watch sports at all isn’t something that’s going to wear off easily.)

They move from sitting in a steely silence to actually speaking, when he’s practicing with one of the finer control exercises. Though when he’d been informed that juggling was, in fact, an exercise he should undertake, he was only half-certain that he wasn’t being messed with. In the end, it didn’t matter- he tried it anyway. Dropped balls on his head a number of times that was frankly embarrassing, and made him grateful that he’d first decided to practice in the privacy of his room. Not to mention the one he’d sent ricocheting off a window that was thankfully impervious to most forms of damage.

(It’d nearly given him a black eye bouncing back, but he figures that’s between him, whoever’s monitoring the security footage from the nearby camera, and Shuri, who probably had gone and seen it and then cackled at his ineptitude. He’s not sure she’d say anything about inferior engineering other than maybe it’s better he’d gone with that than a full Wakanda-tech arm. Too much arm for him to handle, maybe.)

(The Soldier finds that amusing, for some reason.)

Still. It’d been worth it to get a laugh out of the guy. Steve likes him a lot, and Bucky doesn’t think they’re ever going to be best friends (he’s not actually delusional, despite everything), but he figures they can get along. In their own way, of course.

Plus, spite is a real good motivator, when it comes down to it. He’s not going to give Sam Wilson any more ammunition when it comes to laughing at him; he’s got more than enough already.

The other thing is that Wilson doesn’t pry. His background makes the Soldier antsy, having seen him in action makes it worse, but- he doesn’t pry. Bucky is fairly sure that Stevie’s gone and asked Sam to poke around his head, because that’s the kind of meddling Steve seems to do these days. Not that Bucky doesn’t appreciate it. He knows Steve means well, he does. But there’s things he doesn’t want to talk about- things he _can’t_ talk about.

(There’s things that he doesn’t want Steve to know about him. Steve knows he killed Howard and Maria Stark, and their son had wanted to kill him for it, and Bucky can’t blame him for it. Steve doesn’t seem to have thought too hard about it beyond an earnest, “It wasn’t you, Buck,” in the dark of the night when he’d stumbled out to the shared kitchen in their living quarters after another nightmare, just to get his hands on a knife to feel safe again, and had stared at the block with shaking hands when he realized that if he picked one up, the _others_ wouldn’t be safe.

Steve doesn’t know that part of him doesn’t regret it, even though Howard had been their friend, a long time ago. But then again, he doubts that Steve really knew what Howard Stark had turned into. The Soldier had enjoyed killing him. Bucky had thought that it was because he had been a connection to who they once were. Now, he’s not so sure.

But if Steve knew that. If Steve knew _half_ the shit he’d done-)

No. He can’t talk about it. He won’t talk about it. Not to Stevie, whose eyes are so fucking sad it hurts sometimes whenever he looks at Bucky. Not to Wilson, whose complete lack of judgement and silence on the matter is its own kind of damning (because what’s worse than spilling your guts, than spilling it to someone who might actually understand?). And not to the shrink T’Challa’s quietly foisted on him, who gives off the same kind of quiet that Wilson does, except it makes his skin crawl because at least he knows why Wilson chose to stick around (it’s for Steve, of course it is, and he can’t blame him for that), but the thought of a stranger poking around his head, just because they’re being ordered to?

No. The Soldier is firm on this.

Not again, never again.

Those sessions are all stony silence from him, and quiet prompting from the doc, and at the end of it he just walks out feeling worse than ever because what if this is a condition for him staying? He can’t be a danger to anyone, and the triggers are still inside his head somewhere, but those are the keys to a weapon he doesn’t want anyone to have.

So he talks about football and baseball and man out of time stuff and how the tech here is like nothing he’s ever seen before, and, somehow, it works. He thinks the doc might just be happy to not have to spend an hour every week in deeply uncomfortable silence, but- it helps, too. To have someone who’ll explain things to him, tell him what to read.

(Stevie’s takes are that he should just watch all these great movies, and listen to music, and maybe get some books down, too, but he’s not missed out on big chunks of history like Stevie has, either. He was there for some of the big moments in it; hell, he made some of them happen, and he doesn’t know if he’s willing to see the effect of what he’s done.)

So he reads about Wakanda and even if he doesn’t want to go out alone (he doesn’t actually think he’s allowed, and the Soldier chafes at being watched, even if there’s a grudging appreciation for T’Challa’s caution), he can usually tag along with Wilson, or rope Stevie into it. Once, he even managed to get Okoye to let him come along when she was visiting the Border (and didn’t the Soldier just love that, having someone just as deadly, or worse, standing beside him as they ambled through the grass and she explained what those huge animals were.)

It’s not perfect, he knows. It can’t last forever.

But this is progress, and not at the cost of his own blood or anyone else’s, and he’s still getting used to the thought of that. Things are good. Stevie tells him he seems more of himself, and Wilson keeps flipping him the bird, and now Bucky can throw popcorn at him without worrying about it disintegrating in his fingers. He can go outside, and he has people he can talk to, and he might not be happy, but he can shrug off the nightmares easier than he used to.

(Whether or not he deserves to be able to do that is another question, one he doesn’t know the answer to.)

The Soldier tells him that things are never good for long, but at least he’s stopped looking for a HYDRA trap in every meal, a handler lurking around the corner. The part of Bucky that was a soldier before HYDRA tells him that this is still the calm before the storm, that there’s worse to come, because that’s how war is.

He ignores all of that and tries to tell himself that the war is over, that there is no war. In Wakanda, it’s easier to believe that he’s safe. He just has to teach himself the rest.


End file.
